The Inextinguishable Symphony

Wow! This book was so interesting. The author tells the story of his parents and their participation as musicians in the Jewish Culture Association during the time of Nazi Germany leading up to WWII, and how their participation in the Association most-likely saved their lives. The book is interesting because it is so many different types of books at once. A little bit of it is like this man's personal memoires. Part of it is tracing his family history back a few generations. Some of it talks about the general world history of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party coming to power. And some of it was very specific history about an organization that I'd never even heard of before. The Association was actually sponsored by the Nazis to use as propaganda showing the world that the Jews' situation was not all that bad in Germany. Similar, in a way, to our own country's past "separate but equal" treatment of African Americans. The difference is that African Americans position was "progressing" in society up from slavery to being equal citizens, but Jews' position was degrading from equal treatment into slavery. I never realized the steps of how that occurred in the German society at that time. I definitely learned a lot of history reading this book, and yet it had the very personal touch that kept it from feeling anything like a college textbook. I definitely would recommend this book.